Crows Possess Higher Intelligence Long Thought a Primarily Human Attribute, New Research Shows (statnews.com) 75
Research unveiled on Thursday in Science finds that crows know what they know and can ponder the content of their own minds, a manifestation of higher intelligence and analytical thought long believed the sole province of humans and a few other higher mammals. STAT reports: "Together, the two papers show that intelligence/consciousness are grounded in connectivity and activity patterns of neurons" in the most neuron-dense part of the bird brain, called the pallium, neurobiologist Suzana Herculano-Houzel of Vanderbilt University, who wrote an analysis of the studies for Science, told STAT. "Brains can appear diverse, and at the same time share profound similarities. The extent to which similar properties present themselves might be simply a matter of scale: how many neurons are available to work."
The study shows that neurons in the most complex part of the crows' brain, the pallium, "do have activity that represents not what was shown to them, but what they later report," said Herculano-Houzel. Neurons "represent what the animals next report to have seen -- whether or not that is what they were shown," she said. The neurons figure this out, so to speak, during the time lapse between when Nieder tells the birds the rule and when they peck the target to indicate their answer. "That's exactly what one would expect from neurons that participated in building the thoughts that we later report," she said, suggesting that corvids "are as cognitively capable as monkeys and even great apes." A second study, also in Science, looked in unprecedented detail at the neuroanatomy of pigeons and barn owls, finding hints to the basis of their intelligence that likely applies to corvids', too. STAT reports: Specifically, the pigeons' and owls' neurons meet at right angles, forming computational circuits organized in columns. "The avian version of this connectivity blueprint could conceivably generate computational properties reminiscent of the [mammalian] neocortex," they write. "[S]imilar microcircuits ... achieve largely identical cognitive outcomes from seemingly vastly different forebrains." That is, evolution invented connected, circuit-laden brain structure at least twice. "In theory, any brain that has a large number of neurons connected into associative circuitry ... could be expected to add flexibility and complexity to behavior," said Herculano-Houzel. "That is my favorite operational definition of intelligence: behavioral flexibility." That enables pigeons to home, count, and be as trainable as monkeys. But for sheer smarts we're still in the corvid camp.
The study shows that neurons in the most complex part of the crows' brain, the pallium, "do have activity that represents not what was shown to them, but what they later report," said Herculano-Houzel. Neurons "represent what the animals next report to have seen -- whether or not that is what they were shown," she said. The neurons figure this out, so to speak, during the time lapse between when Nieder tells the birds the rule and when they peck the target to indicate their answer. "That's exactly what one would expect from neurons that participated in building the thoughts that we later report," she said, suggesting that corvids "are as cognitively capable as monkeys and even great apes." A second study, also in Science, looked in unprecedented detail at the neuroanatomy of pigeons and barn owls, finding hints to the basis of their intelligence that likely applies to corvids', too. STAT reports: Specifically, the pigeons' and owls' neurons meet at right angles, forming computational circuits organized in columns. "The avian version of this connectivity blueprint could conceivably generate computational properties reminiscent of the [mammalian] neocortex," they write. "[S]imilar microcircuits ... achieve largely identical cognitive outcomes from seemingly vastly different forebrains." That is, evolution invented connected, circuit-laden brain structure at least twice. "In theory, any brain that has a large number of neurons connected into associative circuitry ... could be expected to add flexibility and complexity to behavior," said Herculano-Houzel. "That is my favorite operational definition of intelligence: behavioral flexibility." That enables pigeons to home, count, and be as trainable as monkeys. But for sheer smarts we're still in the corvid camp.
When crows paint "humans over wheatfield" (Score:2)
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I guess the corvid/covid thing went over the mod's head.
Place is getting pretty sorrowful lately...
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Years ago, my daughter found an injured crow. She fed it and nursed it back to health.
Today, the crow comes to her window every afternoon and does her calculus homework.
But crows are not so smart. She only has a "B" in the class.
Nevermore (Score:1)
Nevermore
Doesn't Surprise Me (Score:5, Funny)
I remember one particular tree with a branch maybe twenty feet up over a sidewalk, and often when I would walk down that sidewalk, a crow that hung out on that branch would wait for me to pass, then swoop down silently behind me, and let out a huge cry right when it was right beside my head. Then it would circle back to its branch, where it would sit and cackle. That crow had a very slapstick sense of humor.
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Re:Doesn't Surprise Me (Score:4, Funny)
"Hey, you. Yes, you. You don't look like the previous occupant, but they used to feed me. Now get to it. I prefer steak"
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I have shocking news for you.... Look at your username. You are that crow.
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I'm glad someone noticed that.
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I thought you were the guy who hung out with Tom Servo.
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No, that doesn't ring a bell.
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Watching crows play confirms this. (& repost) (Score:5, Informative)
Sidenote: We hat this two years ago. [slashdot.org].
Watching YouTube videos of crows playing confirms this IMHO. One particular video [youtube.com] shows a crow repeatedly riding sleigh with a can-lid on a snowy rooftop. The bird grabs the lid with it's beak, flies up the roof, puts down the lid, hops on top and starts slinging down the roof, spreading it's wings for balance. Once at the bottom the crows repeats all that, two or three times. It's absolutely amazing to watch a creature other than a human or homilis mammal to be engaged in complex play like that. You see the birds limitations due to its limbs but the intent is totally obvious.
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Re: Watching crows play confirms this. (& repo (Score:4, Insightful)
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Well, intelligence is a variable. It's the ability to learn and adapt knowledge. Plenty of animals do this to varying degrees. Plenty of humans do this varying degrees. The point here is that crows display a higher level of intelligence than previously believed.
I believe a critical component of actual intelligence is the motivation and ability to pass one's learning and knowledge to others in an efficient and lasting way. Only humans have that. Nothing accumulates to any significant degree in the animal kingdom. They stagnate because they aren't really intelligent.
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Then we fail your test, because for the last four decades scientists have been trying to teach us that we're killing our planet and we didn't listen.
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I believe a critical component of actual intelligence is the motivation and ability to pass one's learning and knowledge to others in an efficient and lasting way.
So the ancient Minoans weren't intelligent because they didn't pass on knowledge in a lasting way, because the meaning of Linear A is lost? There are plenty of humans now who have no desire or motivation to pass on their learning and knowledge.
You've, for no good reason, selected a system which cuts off exactly at humans. You can if you want but i
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Honey badgers are also quite clever: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
I don't believe that language and art are the only indicators of intelligence.
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Actually crows are smart enough to figure out the traffic lights to safely crack nuts.
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Crows are smart enough to figure out that the weight of a car can crack open a nut and that a cross-walk is a safe place to cause that to happen because the cars have to periodically stop outside that space. http://www.bbc.com/earth/story... [bbc.com] Honey badgers are also quite clever: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] I don't believe that language and art are the only indicators of intelligence.
Crows know nothing about "weight." They just notice a desirable event occurring. They figure out nothing. Now, if they imagined a car would break a nut without first seeing one do that, then designed and built one to crack nuts, that would indicate intelligence.
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This is why controlled tests present animals with novel situations, like the classic water displacement. The bird will not have previously encountered a situation where depositing stones in water leads to food coming into reach, so the only way to solve the puzzle is to apply existing knowledge of how water behaves in a new manner, and plan out a multi-step process of fetching and depositing stones before commencing the task.
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so the only way to solve the puzzle is to apply existing knowledge of how water behaves in a new manner, and plan out a multi-step process of fetching and depositing stones before commencing the task.
The absolute is not warranted; there could be lots of different internal processes that would lead to discovery.
If you don't know what the bird was thinking, but you decide you do anyways, you're not smarter than the bird. The bird may or may not understand its own thinking; it might be way ahead of you.
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This is why controlled tests present animals with novel situations, like the classic water displacement. The bird will not have previously encountered a situation where depositing stones in water leads to food coming into reach, so the only way to solve the puzzle is to apply existing knowledge of how water behaves in a new manner, and plan out a multi-step process of fetching and depositing stones before commencing the task.
Or, not "existing knowledge of how water behaves," but, instinctive knowledge of how water behaves, leading to an instinctive behavior. The crow may just have more inborn "knowledge" than you assume. Surely an instinctive knowledge of how water behaves would be one of those basic things that nature would build into an animal on such a watery planet. Don't animals flee floodwaters naturally? Same with fire. Instinct is not intelligence. I could just as easily say that a crow has a more complex inborn behavio
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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Crows are smart enough to figure out that the weight of a car can crack open a nut and that a cross-walk is a safe place to cause that to happen because the cars have to periodically stop outside that space.
I've seen pigeons used to fly up in my pecan tree knock the nuts down onto the road, then come back later to eat the cracked nuts. I'm not impressed by a crow doing it.
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Don't confuse intelligence with technological capability. Though there is a variety of crow, New Caledonian, that can construct quite complex tools to get food. https://www.sciencealert.com/c... [sciencealert.com]
They also have very good memories as you would find if you attacked a crow, as for a long time all the crows will bitch at you. Experiments with masks show that they recognize and remember individual humans.
Ravens used to be known for mimicking the whistle punks whistles and killing loggers, and are quite capable of
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I've observed Australian magpies not only grab things (food) with their claws, but use the claw to hold the food on the ground while they tear at it with their beak - like parrots and cockatoos will hold food with a claw while they use the beak to crack it open - nuts, etc.
An opposable thumb allows us an encircling grip, but it's not the only way.
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It is fascinating to learn of just how intelligent some animals are. The companion question that looms behind: If monkeys had not appeared (and turned into us), would other animals have been able to make the jump to a technological civilization? Or are hands with opposable thumbs just a necessary prerequisite? Birds have claws that enables them to grab things, but they also need them to walk, so they are not really free for manual labor.
Hands are necessary. Hands lead to a much more complex motivation array that demands intelligence to build the behavior-space to satisfy it. Anything else is a dead end. Thus the nonsense of science fiction when it shows aliens with gross awkward fingers and hands (or even tentacles) that can do no fine work at all having advanced technologies. I laugh when movie-makers make that mistake.
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Human hands aren't remotely capable of putting together a CPU from component transistors, and yet humans are capable of putting together CPUs. Suppose there are aliens. They could have a hands analogue that is impossibly more dextrous than ours, and be shocked that small collection of three-joint meat sausages are able to get anything done.
In the context here, the question is whether bird claws could be hands even though they stand on hands, and your argument doesn't seem particularly pertinent. I see no
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A good number of birds will attack their own reflections. But intelligence isn't a binary, where either your species can assemble a rocketship or it cannot.
It's weirder than that. Humans can suffer from mirror image agnosia (inability to recognise themselves in a mirror), typically as the result of some sort of brain damage, be the person will still be more intelligent than the smartest animal.
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I have to agree with other commenters that say you are using a very limited definition of intelligence which I would instead say is more like a will to engineering.
In defense of GP, I did set the stage for that by asking about a technological civilization, not intelligence. I do like your response, in particular, that hands are not needed as such. The ability to affect your environment in a convenient manner is.
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"Human hands aren't remotely capable of putting together a CPU from component transistors, and yet humans are capable of putting together CPUs."
Humans put together CPUs (Central Processing Units) all the time from component parts. They put them together from tubes. The put them together from individual transistors. They put them together from basic, primitive ICs (Integrated Circuits). You can even see hobbyists do that today on Youtube if you wish.
"Suppose there are aliens. They could have a hands analogue
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Read Footfall, pretty good aliens that evolved from an elephant type, with 8 digits instead of the 2 that elephants have. Though they did cheat a bit in getting their technology from a prior species. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org],
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If monkeys had not appeared (and turned into us), would other animals have been able to make the jump to a technological civilization?
Yes, when monkeys failed to turn into us, apes evolved and created a technological civilization!
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I'm sure it's a requirement to evolve from awkward counterforce limbs (jaws, legs/hips, etc which can be used to crudely shove, grip, etc) to at least one prehensile appendage.
Not a big deal, you can just specialize out of a body part, possibly among the latter. A tongue or tail that adds bones, splits.
But you can't really see your tailwork and it's hard to specialize limbs you're already using to stand/fly. You can end up with feet that double somewhat as prehensile.
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That species of crow was used in the test, but other crows can be taught the same skills.
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I obviously didn't read TFA. Those crows do seem to be a bit more intelligent then other species of crow.
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You have a pretty low bar for "intelligence."
I have a pretty high bar for intelligence, and you don't pass it. The crows might, though. Sorry about that.
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You have a pretty low bar for "intelligence."
I have a pretty high bar for intelligence, and you don't pass it. The crows might, though. Sorry about that.
Cute, but not interesting. Try harder.
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You have a pretty low bar for "intelligence."
Not really, It's just a notch above your IQ
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You have a pretty low bar for "intelligence."
Not really, It's just a notch above your IQ
Are you comfortable with that as an intelligent comment?
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You'd certainly need to apply context before doing that analysis.
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Your concept of intelligence is pretty limited. While this is probably not, as others suggested, the result of your own intelligence being limited, it is the result of something seen in many humans and especially those trained in tech and sciences, not in humanities: lack of knowledge about the subject combined with severe overconfidence, consciously or subconsciously believing that the sheer capability of logical thinking could replace knowledge. Why should birds write sonnets or build cities, or even want
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Your concept of intelligence is pretty limited. While this is probably not, as others suggested, the result of your own intelligence being limited, it is the result of something seen in many humans and especially those trained in tech and sciences, not in humanities: lack of knowledge about the subject combined with severe overconfidence, consciously or subconsciously believing that the sheer capability of logical thinking could replace knowledge. Why should birds write sonnets or build cities, or even want to live in cities? And anyway, seeing the state of man's cities which are torture chambers for large part of those who live and work in them, one might think they're not a sign of intelligence but of lack thereof.
Your concept of intelligence is so broad it probably would include nematodes. "Why should birds write sonnets or build cities..." Exactly, they haven't the complexity of motivation that would require actual intelligence to build a more complex behavior-space. They are flapping around the world incontinently crapping all over just as they were 66 million years ago. So let me point this out: nothing without hands can develop actual intelligence. And the judgment of man's cities is irrelevant to the discussion
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You have a pretty low bar for "intelligence."
I need to, otherwise I couldn't say you have a pretty low intelligence.
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Re: Watching crows play confirms this. (& rep (Score:2)
So, you define intelligence as things you can do? Pretty self serving. Bet it feels good.
What if crows define intelligence by your patterns of flight? Maybe they all think you're a dipshit...
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And how "intelligent" do you think we are? Look at the tribalism in politics, for example. Another extreme example is how we're destroying our own planet for money, something that's not even real.
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How many sonnets have you written, or cities have you built?
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crows are not exactly writing sonnets or building cities
Please list the award-winning sonnets you have written, and the great cities that you have built.
I'll wait, birdbrain.
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Crows stealing from ice fishing holes is a well known story, but I think you may like this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: Watching crows play confirms this. (& rep (Score:2)
Wait, what? (Score:5, Funny)
Who is the fool that thought intelligence was even an attribute of humans? Have you even met one?
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Every damn morning, in the bathroom. It's always the same idiot on the other side of the mirror looking at me with that dumb look.
Crow Overlords (Score:2)
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Parrot might be better, as the current President shows that talking senselessly is all that is needed. Some parrots show as much intelligence as covids.
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Some parrots show as much intelligence as covids.
Corvids. The other thing is a Mexican beer.
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Browser spell checker seems to be missing corvid, now added.
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Family Crow (Score:5, Interesting)
My mom rescued a baby crow once, that fell from the nest. The parents weren't coming to get her, so she took her home and prepped her up. That crow became part of the family. She would come to greet me when I came home from school, by sitting on my head or shoulder, and when I left on my bike, she flew after me for a while, hitching a ride on my bike, until I chased her away and told her to fly back home. It was like a morning ritual.
She would come flying when we were sitting outside, just to say hello, sticking around, being petted, begging for food...
Problem was she was very protective of her family. When visitors came, she would attack them and go for their heads. She felt comfortable around humans, and some neighbors started complaining about crow-visits. Finally we had to let her go in a forest.
In that case (Score:2)
They also ride horses and speak (Score:2)
It's real.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/w... [wikimedia.org]
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How?
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They can take public transit and visit restaurants as well.
Google "Canuck the Crow" and you'll find plenty of stories and videos about one (tagged) crow that used to ride the commuter train around and basically navigate the city. Alas, it decided to raise a family and crows get mighty protective and probably angered someone to the point where he was killed.
He was also infamous for running off with evidence in a murder scene (crime scene, not murder of crows)
community (Score:2)
When I was a kid there was a whole community of crows that lived in the trees near our house. They were quite noisy. Lots of them flying around squawking constantly. One day when I was about 12 I got the bright idea to shoot one of them with a BB gun. I shot one but it didn't die right away, it started screaming and fell into the neighbors yard. The screaming from that bird got the entire flock circling it and freaking out. Its honestly the craziest thing I've ever seen to this day. Those birds were
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Birds of a feather flock together...